Politics, Religion and Age

Via the Dish, the Public Religion Research Institute breaks down the religious makeup of different age groups, and the religious breakdown of voters for each candidate.  Obama's coalition looks a lot like the youth religious breakdown, while Romney's looks a lot like the elderly:

This is not only a bad sign for the future of the Republican Party, it is also a bad sign for churches.  Just look at the percentages for white Catholics (I'll leave the evangelicals alone since I don't really know much about them).  It shows a steady decrease from 19% of the population of people over 65, down to 8% among the 18-29 year old cohort.  These numbers are being reflected in the pews.  Each October, our archdiocese requires churches to take attendance counts at each mass each Sunday of the month.  The two churches in the town north of me (back in the day one of the churches was the Irish church while the other was the German church) published the numbers for some of the years, while I got the numbers from my church because they were presented to parish council.  Here's what it looks like:

Year             North Church A          North Church B           South Church
1993                     984                              974                              1509
2000                     798                              892                              1492
2008                     591                              584                               832
2009                     586                              589                               825
2010                     577                              562                               823
2011                     625                              508                               803
2012                     589                              496                               763

The increase in 2011 for North Church A reflected a Sunday evening mass they were holding that year.  While the town to the north hasn't really been growing, the town to the south has been.  These numbers, combined with the chart up above, present a very gloomy future for the church.  Each of the towns has a Catholic grade school, and while I don't have numbers for the north town, the south one has about 20 kids per grade.  That is compared to at least 30 per grade when I was attending that school.  When I was there, they had a waiting list for some of the grades.  Today you can enroll a student at any time. 

Last week, the bishops held their annual meeting in Baltimore:

The three-day meeting falls just a week after the re-election of President Barack Obama, whose policies on contraception coverage and gay rights mobilized the bishops in what was widely seen as an effort to elect Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

Many individual bishops spoke out in especially stark terms about the duty of Catholics not to vote for Obama, yet Obama won the Catholic vote 50-48 percent, according to exit polls.
In addition, voters in three states endorsed same-sex marriage initiatives and in another rejected an effort to ban same-sex marriage. All those votes represented major defeats for the bishops, who had invested prestige and millions of dollars in the campaigns.
On Monday, various speakers reiterated that they were not about to change their beliefs or policy positions, but they indicated they have to rethink their strategy. Dolan’s approach in his presidential address was to repeatedly stress the theme of humility and the need for bishops to go to confession to renew themselves spiritually so that they can then preach their message more effectively.
Dolan’s remarks marked a striking change of tone from the assertive and even aggressive rhetoric that the hierarchy deployed during the campaign season.
Now, with Obama back for another four years, the bishops recognize that they have an uphill task in trying to change the administration's mandate that requires employers to provide free contraception insurance coverage, and in halting the acceptance of gay rights.
They vowed to try to win their case in the courts, where possible, but said they will also try to rebuild bridges to the Obama administration.

I know the bishops' positions on abortion and contraception are not going to change, but their opposition to providing their employees insurance covering birth control is not going to win any friends amongst younger folks.  Our priest indicated that he thought the bishops would pressure lawmakers to allow ALL employers to be able to choose to refuse to cover contraceptives for their employees based on their individual consciences.  Maybe the bishops are playing a long game to delegitamize the employer-provided health insurance system and bring about socialized medicine.  I think that will be the long-term impact of such a plan, as Republicans and the bishops further alienate the young and women. 

Likewise, the Church's position on same-sex marriage, and its active campaign to ban gay marriage, are pure poison to young folks, as the bishops and Republicans are starting to see.  The fact is, every time the bishops rail about birth control and same-sex marriage, they are losing people who would potentially be the heart of the Church as older parishioners pass away.  The best move the bishops could take would be to grudgingly accept the birth control insurance mandate and to quit publicly fighting same-sex marriage.  No state will require them to marry same-sex couples, so they could go about their business without having any issues.  Instead, they show no real inclination to back off much on either fight.  It is going to hurt them way down the road.